Dan Scott @dbs@code4lib.social
Wikipedia deletionism
Saw a lengthy article had been proposed for deletion if no action was taken within 7 days. Then noticed it had been deleted after 4 days.
I reverted the deletion and then checked the proposing user's very active contributions--it looks like most of what they do is propose articles for deletion and then delete them.
Sure, sometimes we need to prune, but my instincts lean towards pitching in and improving deficient articles. So this felt shocking to me.
Just finished WikiPedia's WikiEdu training modules, and while they're fantastic, I find it ironic that the modules are not themselves editable.
I'd like to correct simple mistakes I've found, e.g. changing "Assigned trainings" into a heading on https://dashboard.wikiedu.org/training/instructors/new-instructor-orientation/dashboard-resources-tab or typos like "possibile" elsewhere.
But there isn't a feedback / report problem link on each page. Luckily, it does request feedback once you've finished the training. So I'm using that :)
I love @pluralistic but I also love Mastodon's ability to filter phrases. Just added 5 filters to drop the repetitive posts that he tacks onto every one of his threads.
If it was a single, long post that had the links to his books & newsletter at the end, that would be fine. But my feed fills up a little too quickly; filters help tame the beast a bit.
Also that document is 5 years old and shows a completely different UI for the Admin Tool. And nothing analogous in the new UI. Good job Elsevier.
"You can create data exchange tokens yourself using the ScienceDirect Admin Tool. For step-by-step directions, please download this 6-page Quick Reference Guide."
BWAHAHAHA
Another day, another Drupal 7 hack. We don't want to publish author names & pictures for our content-type "news" so after trying to re-immerse myself in templates, trying various hooks to unset the corresponding vars, and finding no difference I finally just added
.node-news .user-picture { display: none }
to my theme's style.css and it's good enough for me.
Sorry for the unnecessary bloat, Internet.
Well today is another day where I consider the benefits of federated / decentralized infrastructures, as my friends and family struggle to communicate with me on Signal.
It's my fault, I brought most of them to Signal over the past few years. *sigh*
Still better than most of the alternatives though.
Here's my slow, simple script for comparing the titles of the bibs our holdings were attached to in Ex Libris Alma against the bibs in our legacy Evergreen library system.
Necessary because of missing accents in many of the Alma bibs (thanks anglophone partners!) and outright mismatches based on OCLC numbers (often data quality issues in our bibs).
https://gitlab.com/denials/compare-bibs-alma-to-evergreen
SRU and a simple REST API #FTW although it's taken all week to process 600K records.
Library insecurity, vendors
This was after I had given our contact staff person the required stunnel cert and the link to the Ex Libris docs on how to set up stunnel.
So I guess I get to go in and set it up myself. Glad we're paying all these professionals to do their professional stuff.
Library insecurity, vendors
Ex Libris did the right thing and requires stunnel to encrypt the otherwise plaintext SIP communications for self-checks, RFID pads, etc.
BiblioTheca support person trying to configure their hardware fails to get stunnel working and tells the library staff person "there is no personal information passed between your PC and the server, just item IDs and titles".
And user IDs and names and emails, not to mention transactions that could be performed.
Argh.
Dan Scott
boosted
Accessibility rant
For more than a decade now, the Mac's screen reader has been able to use the trackpad for navigation. It's not the fastest method, but for those who are blind and have low dexterity, it's much faster than sticky keys and trying to use the keyboard. Meanwhile, Linux *still* doesn't have this, and it's always "well GTK has to do this," "Well ATSPI has to do this." "Well Orca needs this." Funny how a closed system is less ableist than Linux, the "free" system.
Academic privacy, surveillance, EFF event
The event "At Home (and On Campus) with EFF" that was supposed to happen today has been rescheduled for January 14th at 12:00 PM PST
Dan Scott
boosted
content warnings
So glad to see a stream full of uspol content warnings. Thanks everyone for being considerate!
My son and I finished enough of the enclosure to move his beardie into his new home. We have more "furniture" (oven-baked birch logs) to add and arrange, but this holiday project has been a success!
Dan Scott
boosted
Join us for a fireside chat with @flexlibris, ED of @LibraryFreedom, on January 7th as we discuss the growing risk of academic surveillance. https://www.eff.org/event/home-and-campus-eff
Dan Scott
boosted
Hello everyone, I’m a librarian from South America. Hope to learn and contribute about privacy, wellbeing and good use of technology in life.
#introductions
Dan Scott
boosted
@privacyint no. stop. don't.
Instead, use *different* strong random passwords for most of your services, and keep them in a password manager.
most password managers will help you generate strong random passwords automagically.
asking people to change passwords often is pushing them to use the same weak password across different services. and that's a way bigger security issue than an old password, especially if the old password is long and random.
Current project with my 12yo son: building a new enclosure for his bearded dragon. I'm not much of a woodworker but this seems to be coming along well. Lots of /r/Bearded_Dragons reading and some clutch assistance from my neighbor who has every tool under the sun.
Privacy violations
Just realized my boss has been using a mail tracker that tells him when and where somebody was whenever they open a link in his emails. For 2.5 years.
I replied to all, calling him out on violations of ALA principles 3 and 5 (privacy and treating colleagues with respect), and provided instructions on how to tease out the links from the tracker to avoid his surveillance.
